Hugh's Views

Esquire has an incredible feature on Roger Ebert. If you don’t know, he lost his voice several years ago due to a surgery gone bad. But now, he has found a new life with the written word. His twitter account is a work of art.

The older I get, the more I realize that life comes down to a series of choices. Unfortunately, seldom do the critical choices seem like critical choices at the time.

These choices seldom seem life changing… except they are, really.  Because every choice to do one thing is a choice to not do another thing. Financial types call this opportunity cost.

By sleeping in, I am losing out on the chance to go to the gym. By going to this movie, I lose the time to read that book. Spending my money on that ipod means not investing that money in my retirement account.

And every new online social network I join, means less time I have to spend on doing things that matter.

Like having conversations with the friends I already have.

Like planning my garden for next spring.

Like meeting my neighbors.

Like going for a walk.

All of those things are infinitely more important to me than my joining your tribe, or following you, or being a member of your posse, or whatever. The world (and especially the internet) is engaged in a giant conspiracy to rob me (and you) of my time, money and attention. I view each day as a battle, in which I fight to keep all of those things.

So, realizing that, if everything goes well, I have about 40 more first days of summer to look forward to, I intend to spend those doing things that matter, instead of throwing a sheep at people, taking the “Which Desperate Housewives Character Are You” quiz, posting more songs to play when you open my MySpace page or answering the questions of strangers on LinkedIn.

And since every choice is also a choice to not do something else, I also realize that there are only so many things I can do well. I submit there is no way you can maintain “friendships” on 10 differant social networks. Time spent working on my LinkedIn page is time I don’t chat on Facebook.

And doing things well is important to me.

So, I won’t be joining your network on LinkedIn. Or friending you on MySpace. Or joining any of the hundreds of Ning networks that have sprung up or ask you to take any quiz on FaceBook whatsoever.

Instead, I will spend that time and energy here, creating good stuff.  Or offline, eating with friends. Both of which, to me, matter.

NB: Yes, I do have a Facebook page, but if we have never ate together, I probably won’t accept your friend request. And don’t message me there, because I won’t read it. The only Social Media application I currently use with any purpose is Twitter, which I like a great deal.  By all means, feel free to follow me there. But I would rather you spent that time doing things that matter.